U-Ute
03-16-2016, 12:50 PM
As a computer programmer, I'm both fascinated and somewhat disturbed by how much you can glean by just knowing about a person's habits.
This is an old but fascinating story about how Target knew one of their customers was pregnant and was able to ad target her, before she even told her family she was pregnant.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1
About a year after Pole created his pregnancy-prediction model, a man walked into a Target outside Minneapolis and demanded to see the manager. He was clutching coupons that had been sent to his daughter, and he was angry, according to an employee who participated in the conversation.
“My daughter got this in the mail!” he said. “She’s still in high school, and you’re sending her coupons for baby clothes and cribs? Are you trying to encourage her to get pregnant?”
The manager didn’t have any idea what the man was talking about. He looked at the mailer. Sure enough, it was addressed to the man’s daughter and contained advertisements for maternity clothing, nursery furniture and pictures of smiling infants. The manager apologized and then called a few days later to apologize again.
On the phone, though, the father was somewhat abashed. “I had a talk with my daughter,” he said. “It turns out there’s been some activities in my house I haven’t been completely aware of. She’s due in August. I owe you an apology.”
Where is the line for using Big Data? I'm not sure I even know how to frame the question right.
This is an old but fascinating story about how Target knew one of their customers was pregnant and was able to ad target her, before she even told her family she was pregnant.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1
About a year after Pole created his pregnancy-prediction model, a man walked into a Target outside Minneapolis and demanded to see the manager. He was clutching coupons that had been sent to his daughter, and he was angry, according to an employee who participated in the conversation.
“My daughter got this in the mail!” he said. “She’s still in high school, and you’re sending her coupons for baby clothes and cribs? Are you trying to encourage her to get pregnant?”
The manager didn’t have any idea what the man was talking about. He looked at the mailer. Sure enough, it was addressed to the man’s daughter and contained advertisements for maternity clothing, nursery furniture and pictures of smiling infants. The manager apologized and then called a few days later to apologize again.
On the phone, though, the father was somewhat abashed. “I had a talk with my daughter,” he said. “It turns out there’s been some activities in my house I haven’t been completely aware of. She’s due in August. I owe you an apology.”
Where is the line for using Big Data? I'm not sure I even know how to frame the question right.